Tuesday, 6 June 2017

Otago Central Railway [23A]: More article writing, Wedderburn Station

So I am now working on the first part of a series of probably three parts for NZRO publication. At the moment I am covering from Cromwell back to Oturehua in this part.

Because I had only planned on doing Cromwell to Clyde, I now have to finish the maps for the stations between Oturehua and Alexandra as well as any other detail along the route. I originally only drew layouts as far as Wedderburn, which just happens to be the next station along from Oturehua, so if I do the layouts for this first article part, I will have completed all of the detail for the entire line. However there are quite a few stations to cover: Alexandra, Galloway, Chatto Creek, Omakau, Lauder, Auripo, Ida Valley and Oturehua.

I will be working on this every day to ensure it is finished as quickly as possible. Things have gone a bit slowly in the last couple of weeks but it is time to get back into it again so that I can get the first article part completed and published as quickly as possible.

Here are a couple of maps of Wedderburn just to set the tone of things.

Streetview image from near the 137 km peg showing the station platform and a high level loading bank.

Loading bank on the left at Wedderburn, closer to the crossing.

Present location of the buildings close to the highway crossing. Both buildings were taken offsite at different times and have been returned, but placed in different locations than when they were part of the NZR station.

This is an old railway footbridge possibly from Dunedin (Caversham?) as the Otago Central line never stooped to anything as lavish as a footbridge anywhere along its route, whether in a station yard or as a separate crossing somewhere along the track. The location of it is at the Wedderburn Tavern, about 500 metres west of the highway crossing.

Wedderburn is one of the few stations I got useful aerial photography for other than Alexandra-Clyde and my first task is going back to that to ensure I have the high level loading bank in there so that my map is complete and then I will be going up the line to Oturehua and all the other stations through to Alexandra inclusive. I have some aerial coverage for some of those stations but not all of them so some of them will be more accurate than others.